Camping CSI: High profile TV show provokes search gaming

After CBS aired "Down the Rabbit Hole", an episode of CSI:NY that incorporated Second Life into an episode, along with an SL-based murder mystery tie-in, it provoked an explosion of new account sign-ups-- as many as 100,000, by Tateru's estimate.  It also provoked dozens of Resident entrepreneurs to add "CSI" to their location description, so that anyone searching for SL areas related to the show see theirs, too.  (And presumably, teleport to them, mistakenly thinking they're locales part of the "CSI:NY Virtual Experience".) In fact, there's now so much gaming of CSI as a search term, the official CBS-sponsored sites are not even among the top ten search results.  (Last week, when I took this screenshot, it was seventeenth, behind numerous newbie/free money sites, a grassroots roleplaying game, an armory, and a site for Canadian Residents.)  The SL Herald was first to notice this, I should add, and of course, duly noted the number of adult/porn sites that have added the title of Jerry Bruckheimer's TV franchise to their venue listing. 

At this point, "CSI" might as well stand for Camping Synergistic IP.  Perhaps the show's producers will consider all this an irksome exploit, but it might actually be a bonus. 

After all, their plan was to invite fans of the TV show into Second Life so they could hunt for a killer in a bizarre and mysterious alternate world. And now that "CSI" itself has been gamed, they're in for an even stranger adventure, with more false leads, conflicts, and bizarre encounters. Like an emergent alternate reality game, a fictional story has been inextricably intertwined with an existing world, albeit a virtual one. And thanks to enterprising Residents, CSI's rabbit hole has a thousand more warrens.

Comments

[dandellion Kimban]

But now the question arises, why haven't CBS built less islands and spread their game all over the grid? It would be win-win situation.

[Gary Hayes]

"Like an emergent alternate reality game, a fictional story has been inextricably intertwined with an existing world, albeit a virtual one."

Alternate Reality Games in Virtual Spaces

[Suzanna Soyinka]

I saw this search gaming going on and frankly, I laughed.

Some folks can let their own content stand for itself, without having to use search terms that have little or absolutely nothing to do with their own sim, others have to resort to search gaming and camping chairs.

And the variance between the two is a very different set of Second Lives.

Its a rather sad fact though, unfortunately, that the popular places list continues to not make a determination between content...and what I prefer to call "filler".

Regardless I'm not slamming camping sims so much, I guess it keeps money rolling back and forth for those that need it. But nothing is more pathetic than a sim using search terms that have nothing to do with it to generate traffic, and quite a few unprincipled sim owners do it. Maybe false advertising should be punishable under the TOS?

[Pappy Enoch]

I camps on HippiePay I-land, tho I are a Po' Moonshiner n' not a Hippie (tho I luvs them-thar Hippie gals).

Corn-sidur this: tho Mistopher Au don't cuzzin much to campin' sites, the Lindens I gits lets mee buy corn, yeast, an udder ingreedyunts fo' my Shine fixermints.

Campin' are a publick service, if'n yu axes me: it do keep fellers like mee frum gittin' a bug in my panty-loons n' runnin' amok n' reckin' the fake wirld o' Secund Life fo' yu city folks....I'd have tu turn tu crime tu git mee a payout like the wun I gits from them Hippies.

[don]

haveing a prob game crashes everytime i turn it on